Highlights
- Lilith, Amara, and Maya are among the strongest Vault Hunters in the Borderlands franchise, excelling in support roles, elemental damage, survivability, and devastating action skills.
- Gage and Moze take the Soldier and Commando classes to the next level with their fully mobile action skills and top-notch survivability.
- Other vault hunters like Claptrap and Aurelia are too conditional or unpredictable to compare to their peers.
Throughout the many Borderlands games, there has been a massive cast of Vault Hunter characters by now. Most of these characters have shown up in multiple games throughout the Borderlands franchise already, often getting stronger each time.
As far as the vault hunters in the Borderlands games go, a few stand out as exceptionally powerful characters above the rest. Many of the latest vault hunters in particular feel like significant improvements over some of the classic characters from the earlier games.
S-Tier
Lilith, Amara, and Maya: For familiar fans, it’s likely no surprise that all the playable Sirens in the Borderlands franchise are some of the best Vault Hunters. Throughout the Borderlands games, Lilith in particular has proven to potentially be the strongest character in the entire franchise. The Borderlands franchise’s Siren characters all have a wide range of talents, often excelling at support roles, Elemental damage proficiency, survivability, and devastating action skills, all at the same time.
Gage and Moze: Gage and Moze from the Borderlands franchise are almost two sides of the same coin. The main difference between these two vault hunters is that while Moze specializes in explosive splash damage, Gage specializes in Elemental damage. These characters both take the resident Soldier and Commando classes from the earlier Borderlands franchise games to the next level by having fully mobile action skills and top-notch survivability.
Timothy Lawrence: The main complaint that players have with Handsome Jack’s Doppelganger is that they are one of the best characters in the Borderlands franchise, which potentially spoils some of the experience in Borderlands the Pre-Sequel. This character is a powerful mix of weapon proficiency skills, kill skills, and an overpowered action skill.
Nisha: Nisha’s action skill can end a fight in record time, with a little bit of flair in the process. Not to mention, pistols are a surprisingly versatile weapon to be proficient with if players choose that particular one of Nisha’s three skill trees.
A-Tier
Krieg: Krieg is a fan-favorite and also a vault hunter with one of the most unique playstyles in the Borderlands franchise to date. This character’s skills can be self-deprecating at first, but after mastering his strengths, Krieg is a surprisingly powerful vault hunter who deserves a comeback in a future Borderlands game.
Brick: Brick is a melee-oriented vault hunter who also happens to have an affinity for explosive weapons. This combination makes for an insanely good playstyle, especially considering that Brick can regenerate rocket launcher ammo, which is otherwise hard to come by in the original Borderlands game.
FL4K: FL4K has an impressive amount of action skill options to choose from, including a proper action skill and several pet companions that will fight beside them, all with a variety of their own specific upgrades. On top of all the powerful skill combinations that FL4K has access to, this character can also deal an insane amount of critical hit damage between both the player and their pet.
Zane: Zane’s strength comes from the fact that he can choose up to two of his four total action skills at once, most of which will incorporate copies of the player’s equipped grenade, shield, and/or legendary weapons in Borderlands 3. In a lot of ways, Zane feels like a combination of some of the best parts of the vault hunters who came before him.
B-Tier
Athena: Athena was first introduced in a Borderlands expansion and then ended up as a playable character and the game’s narrator in Borderlands the Pre-Sequel. Athena’s action skill that can store incoming damage in a physical shield and throw it to deal the damage back to enemies is the ultimate offensive-shield power fantasy.
Zer0: Zer0’s blend of melee and sniper rifle specialized perks may seem like an awkward pair, but it’s much more practical than it sounds. Zer0 essentially paved the way for FL4K’s skills and playstyle, but that’s not to say that this character isn’t powerful in the first place.
Wilhelm: Wilhelm is a great vault hunter to have on any team due to his action skills and related buffs that extend to other players in Borderlands’ co-op gameplay. Wilhelm’s combat drones will act on their own, so players can focus on looting and shooting while Wilhelm’s Saint and Wolf drones do most of the heavy work.
Salvador: As far as gunslingers go in the Borderlands franchise, Salvador the Gunzerker is among the best. There isn’t much complexity to Salvador’s skill builds in Borderlands 2, but using two guns at once is still an insanely fun playstyle.
C-Tier
Axton and Roland: Axton and Roland are oriented around a sentry-gun action skill. These characters have a lot of options for whether they want to buff their sentry turret's damage or turn them into defensive support stations, but their reliance on their stationary action skills holds these characters back.
Claptrap: Claptrap’s action skill randomly activates one of many possible abilities, which is a refreshing playstyle, but it’s also a double-edged sword. Claptrap’s action skill can be extremely powerful, but it can also be quite detrimental.
Mordecai: Mordecai has the foundation for a glass-cannon playstyle, but it doesn’t quite reach its full potential in the original Borderlands. This character's action skill isn’t very effective and there are very few ways to invest in their survivability.
D-Tier
Aurelia: Aurelia is far too specialized and locked into a particular playstyle for her own good. When not actively playing towards this vault hunter’s strengths in Borderlands’ endgame content, she leaves much to be desired.
Rhys, Vaughn, Sasha, Anu, Octavio, and Fran: As lovable as the Tales from the Borderlands and New Tales from the Borderlands characters are, they are some of the weakest characters in Borderlands’ lore. These vault hunters are bound to show up again in the mainline Borderlands games though, so this could change in the near future.